Black Sections, the Labour Party movement for African Caribbean and Asian people, is celebrating its 25th birthday.

Four Black Sections members created a bit of history when we propelled them into the House of Commons four years after our demand for greater representation was first tabled at Labour conference in 1983. That momentous event is being marked by a celebration at Parliament today – it will be the biggest gathering of black politicians ever assembled in Britain.

As Paul Boateng, Britain's high commissioner in Pretoria and one of those four Black Sections MPs, notes: "The fact that this meeting takes place off the Great Hall in the Palace of Westminster where members of Parliament drawn from the ethnic minority community are to be found in all three main parties is in no small measure due to the contribution of the Black Sections movement. This is worthy of celebration but there is no room for complacency." None of the movement's achievements would have been possible without protest and agitation. The uprisings that occurred in the early 1980s in Brixton, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and elsewhere acted as a wake-up call to a society that was either indifferent or hostile to the demands of disenfranchised and disadvantaged black people. But the legitimate calls for fair representation made by black communities whose electoral support was given overwhelmingly to Labour were stubbornly resisted by the party leadership of Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley, who were obsessed with defeating a rising left-wing rank and file. Despite this opposition, Black Sections won. We achieved a 500-fold increase in African-Caribbean and Asian representation in town halls around the country, four black council leaders, four black MPs, and Bill Morris as the first black trade union general secretary. On top of that, black self-organised groups were formed in trade unions and even by police officers. And the TUC created places on its general council and executive for black representatives. Urged by our communities to state our policies, we published the influential Black Agenda document in 1988. By 1990, the Labour Party finally changed its constitution to embrace the Black Socialist Society that we brought into being. MP Keith Vaz, the former Europe minister, is its directly elected representative on the ruling national executive committee of the Labour Party. He is also chair of the backbench Home Affairs Select Committee. Boateng went on to become Britain's first black cabinet minister in 2002. But, though the Black Sections managed to get "black faces in high places", the movement itself was destroyed from within by the machinations of an unforgiving Labour Party and some short-sighted opportunists. Many of the Black Sections leadership remained Labour members but became disillusioned with the party. We diverted our energy into building the grassroots Anti-Racist Alliance, which helped set up the groundbreaking Stephen Lawrence campaign for justice. Yet with religious prejudice in the form of Islamophobia being added to older forms of racism, we have observed a disturbing shift away from the political unity between African Caribbean and Asian people, which made Black Sections so successful. Furthermore, racial inequality in education, employment and the justice system still exists. And new challenges, like the current youth-on-youth killings, the disaffection of some young Muslims, and the resurgence of the BNP have developed. Some people might say that is why the activism, organisation and brain power of Black Sections should be revived.